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08 April 2010

... and It Appears Paul Anderson Was Right.

A new day is dawning, as I am going to admit that I was wrong. In a previous blog, I stated that I didn't like Paul Anderson's method of doing progressively deeper partials to build strength. I had tried it years ago, and was underwhelmed by the results. I've discovered the nature of my problem, however- I wasn't training often enough. Anderson squatted 3x a week, while when I tried a similar routine, I was doing bodypart training, and saw virtually no progress doing partials once per week.

Anderson's Program, for the hyperlink-clicking challenged (and because I know one or all of you lazy assholes would ask for a link to the fucking program):

T/TH/S
Full squat
2x10x600
1x2x825
1x2x845
1x2x900

Half Squat
1x2x1200

Quarter Squat
1x2x1800

Deadlift
4x6-8x650

M/W/F
Press Off Rack
1x6x300
1x2x400
1x2x390
1x2x370

Press Outs (from sticking point to lockout)
1x4x500

Press From Shoulders To Top Of Head
1x4x500

Push-Press off Rack
1x3x450

Bench Press
1x6-8x400-450

I recently decided, for no real reason whatsoever, that I'd give them a shot, since I liked training partials anyway. Two months and several utterly destroyed pairs of cargo shorts later, I've discovered that this method is fucking genius. I arbitrarily picked 700 as my goal for a full squat, and started training multiple partials, for workouts ranging from 40 minutes to two and a half hours, with between 700-800 lbs for a variety of reps, stances, and depths, with fairly startling results. Over the past two months, I've increased my front squat max, which I've barely trained, by 20 lbs, and have gotten to the point where I recently did a fairly easy bottom position squat from parallel with 565. For those of you who think this is a simple matter, try squatting 90% of your 1RM from a dead stop at the bottom of a squat. It's ridiculously hard, if not impossible. My goal is to get my bottom position squat to 630, at which point I'm virtually guaranteed a 700 lb squat, with no belt and hopefully no wraps. My routine has varied, but here's the gist:

2x / week
Partial squats of progressively greater depth
10-20 x 1-5 with goal weight. Obviously, the smaller a fraction of your competition depth, and the fresher you are, the higher your reps. After a particularly successful day of squatting with your normal stance, move your feet in on the successive workout to increase your range of motion.

I did one workout with a stance that was essentially one foot-width apart (as in, my feet were only spaced far enough apart to fit a spare shoe in between them), and then dropped the depth.

After I got comfortable with that, but was getting close to the bottom, I added weight, so that I was doing 800 lb 3/4 squats with 800, with my normal stance.

I generally try to throw in a third workout of either partials or lighter full squats, and have even worked in my old friend the BodyMaster Squat machine to work range of motion and to play with my stance.

This shit is working, and I'll keep you posted with my progress. Additionally, I've gained about ten lbs of bodyweight since mid-December and leaned out, which I attribute mostly to this new squat routine, and the rest of which to my 2 a day routine about which I've already posted. Videos coming soon, you jackals.

I haven't deadlifted at all in over a month. I'd put them into the light squat day, though, and just truncate the squats a bit, or use them instead of squats. My last pull-centric workout was 8x5x405, 3x3x455 on bent over rows, and the form on the sets with 405 was fairly strict (for me at least). As such, and given the fact that I am doing the Bear nearly every day and a shitload of shrugs every week, I'm not missing out on anything.

As for the 2.5 hour workouts, it was all singles on ultra-heavy quarter squats, and I read a book in between.

I like how you're looking down to take your picture so that any potential onlookers would think that you're changing the song on your mp3 player and wouldn't know that you're taking a picture of yourself for your blog.

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